The Dangerous Age eBook

Do I really suffer? Have I not really become
insensible to pain? Once the cold moon was a
burning sun; her own central fires consumed it.
Now she is cold and dead; her light a mere reflection
and a falsehood.

* * * *
*

His first glance told me all. He cast down his
eyes so that he might not hurt me again. ...
And I—­coward that I was—­I accepted
without interrupting him the tender words he spoke,
and even his caress....

But when our eyes met a second time we both knew that
all was at an end between us.

One reads of “tears of blood.” During
the few hours he spent in my house I think we smiled
“smiles of blood.”

When we sat opposite to each other at table, we might
have been sitting each side a deathbed. We only
attempted to speak when Jeanne was waiting at table.

When we parted, he said:

“I feel like the worst of criminals!”

He has not committed a crime. He loved me once,
now he no longer loves me. That is all.

* * * *
*

But after what has happened I cannot remain here.
Everything will remind me of my hours of joyful waiting;
of my hours of failure and abasement.

Where can I go to hide my shame?

* * * *
*

Richard....

* * * *
*

Would that be too humiliating? Why should it
be? Did I not give him my promise: “If
I should ever regret my resolution,” I said to
him.

* * * *
*

I will write to him, but first I must gather up my
strength again. Jeanne goes long walks with me.
We do not talk to each other, but it comforts me to
find her so faithful.

* * * *
*

DEAR RICHARD,

It is a long time since I wrote to you, but neither
have you been quite so zealous a correspondent this
summer, so it is tit for tat.

I often think of you, and wonder how you are really
getting on in your solitude. Whether you have
been living in the country and going up to town daily?
Or if, like most of the “devoted husbands,”
you still only run down to the cottage for week-ends?

If I were not absolutely free from jealousy, in any
form, I should envy you your new car. This neighbourhood
is charming, but to explore it in a hired carriage,
lined with dirty velvet, does not attract me.
Now, dear friend, don’t go and send off car
and chauffeur post-haste to me. That would be
like your good nature. But, of course, I am only
joking.

Send me all the news of the town. I read the
papers diligently, but there are items of interest
which do not appear in the papers! Above all,
tell me how things are going with Lillie. Will
she soon be coming home? Do you think her conduct
was much talked of outside her own circle? People
chatter, but they soon forget.